Sooners Boogie All Night but Save One Last Dance for Kansas

The Gooeys melted under the hot lights of the Final Four Saturday evening, while the Cabbage Patch Kids cooly congaed into your hearts and history books.

Loosely translated, that’s: Oklahoma 86, Arizona 86’d (78 points).

The Oklahoma Sooners advanced to Monday night’s Final Two against Kansas with an impressive win that answered the David Letterman question, “Are we having fun yet?”

If you can’t have fun on the Sooner bandwagon, friend, you might consider a switch to bowling or cricket, some sport where the world’s best amateur players aren’t quite so, uh, loose.

How loose are the Sooners?

Immediately after Saturday’s game they gathered at midcourt, not for handshakes and backslaps but for a quick version of the team’s official dance, the Cabbage Patch. Sooner sub Tony (Hawk) Martin, the team choreographer, describes the dance as “a rotation of your upper body opposite the rotation of your lower body, sort of like a wave.”

Warning: This dance should not be attempted without chiropractic supervision.

The Sooner bench employs the Cabbage Patch during games, too, to salute outstanding achievement on the court. There is a logical reason for the dance.

“We want to be America’s team,” said Martin, a graduate of Manual Arts High School in Los Angeles. “We wanna be known from coast to coast.”

The Sooners are not a one-dance team. After the postgame press conference, as Ricky (Amazing) Grace, Stacey (Sky) King and (General) Harvey Grant were filing out of the interview area behind Coach Billy Tubbs, each player put two hands on the shoulders of the guy in front of him, forming college basketball’s most impressive conga line, Tubbs dancing lead.

The Sooners also have a team handshake, described here by Martin: “It’s like a Run DMC imitation. Two high fives, then you bring your arm around in a circular motion and slap hands at the bottom, then cross your arms, step away and and come back for a low five.”

And this is just the Oklahoma bench, which outperformed Arizona’s famed Gumbies bench crew. The Sooners refer to the Arizona Gumbies as “the Gooeys.”

All of this sideline shtick would not mean much if it weren’t for the fact that the Sooners who are actually in the game at any given time are also nimble afoot and highly entertaining.

Call them Run TNT.

Saturday night, they ran off 11 straight points late in the first half to take a 31-19 lead, and ran a very good Arizona team out of the gym.

The Sooners scored 86 points, about half as many as they like to run up, but they still looked good doing it, against a quality opponent. The Sooners are relentless. They could’ve danced all night.

“They (the Wildcats) think they play an up-tempo game,” said Oklahoma forward Dave (Soul Man) Sieger, so nicknamed because he’s the only white starter, “but they don’t know what up-tempo means until they play against us.”

Soul Man said he could see the Wildcats wilt in the second half.

“When they’d catch the ball, they weren’t trying to put any moves on you, they were looking to pass,” he said. “Earlier, they’d catch the ball and try to put moves on you.”

Sieger, reading the Wildcats’ minds and body language, said the Arizona guys were saying, “Dang, it sure would be nice to have a timeout.”

Cocky? Well, modesty is not the Sooners’ long suit. For instance, they have a guy who came off the bench Saturday, 6-foot 5-inch forward Andre Wiley, who scored 11 points in 17 minutes. Wiley’s nickname is The Creator. Where did he get the nickname?

“In Saginaw (Mich.),” The Creator said. “I got 45 points and 23 rebounds (in a high school game). The girls gave the name to me.”

The girls from his school?

“No, no. The girls from Saginaw.”

Just to keep his game and nickname sharp when he’s not logging a lot of playing time, The Creator puts on dunk exhibitions. In Friday’s open-to-the-public workout, The Creator lined up three ballboys between the free-throw line and the basket, kind of like Evil Knievel used to line up busses or trucks. The Creator got a running start, cleared the kids and nearly destroyed the rim and backboard.

“I watch Michael Jordan in the slam contest and he takes off over nothin’,” The Creator said, unimpressed. “I take off over people .”

So do the Sooners. Even though the pace of the game Saturday was not quite fast enough for their taste, they still kept constant pressure on the Wildcats on offense and defense, they still pushed the ball.

“They was real tired,” The Creator said of the Wildcats. “They was breathin’ hard.”

The Sooners still had enough gas left to dance, and to hit the locker room running. Sky King jogged by a TV camera, leaned in close to the lens and shouted, “One mo’ game! One mo’!”

America’s--and Arthur Murray’s--team had done it again. They consider themselves the finest-conditioned team in the sport. They worked hard to get that way. Tubbs even brought in an aerobics instructor during preseason training, and she would dance the Sooners dizzy for an hour straight.

“She wouldn’t never stop,” The Creator said.

Kind of like a basketball team we all know and love from coast to coast.